U.S. CRACK ADDICT FOUND GUILTY OF HOMICIDE IN DEATH OF FETUS

An American First

A woman has been convicted of killing her unborn child by using crack
cocaine during her pregnancy in what is believed to be the first such
homicide conviction in the United States.

A jury in Conway, S.C., found Regina McKnight, 24, guilty Wednesday after
only 15 minutes of deliberations. She was sentenced to 12 years in prison,
although she could have faced a life sentence.

"A child ended up dead," said Bert von Herrmann, the prosecutor.

"She smoked cocaine as much and as often as she could ... if that's not
extreme indifference to life, I don't know what is."

South Carolina law considers a fetus in the third trimester a person, and
state prosecutors have in the past charged mothers with child abuse,
distributing drugs to a minor and murder if they believed the women were
harming their fetuses.

The case opens the door to prosecuting pregnant women for any activity
considered injurious to a fetus, including smoking, drinking or
participating in athletics, according to Lynn Paltrow, of the group
National Advocates for Pregnant Women.

She said the law has been applied to a woman whose child was born in 1998
with fetal alcohol syndrome.

The law was also considered this year when a woman in a South Carolina
hospital refused to submit to a Caesarean section after 40 hours of labour.

McKnight's lawyers said they will appeal the verdict.

McKnight's baby was stillborn in 1999 at 35 weeks. McKnight is the mother
of three other children and is two months pregnant.

The U.S. Congress has passed bills that define fetuses as human beings,
making it a federal crime to harm a fetus at any stage of development. The
U.S. Supreme Court, however, has never accepted the definition of a fetus
as a human being.

Dr. Margaret Somerville of the McGill Centre for Medicine, Ethics and Law
said such a prosecution could not happen in Canada under current law.

"The Criminal Code in Canada says you don't become a human being until you
are delivered from the body of your mother," she said. "Under our law, no
child exists until it's born. How can you abuse a non-existent child? You
can have an abortion the day before you give birth in Canada."

Dr. Somerville said many U.S. states have written laws to protect fetuses
from the harmful behaviour of their mothers, including many that allow
women to be jailed for the duration of their pregnancies. "They've
basically extended the definition of child abuse," she said.

She believes that sometimes action must be taken to protect unborn
children. "My own view is that when you see a woman who you know for sure
is going to give birth to that kid and you know that they are just
destroying it before it's had any chance, some limitation on the woman's
freedom could be justified."

Many of the U.S. laws are aimed at attacking abortion rights or drug abuse
more than protecting unborn children, Dr. Somerville said.

"They're very busy with these laws, and sometimes they're very
self-righteous about them. Most of us would agree, whatever we think about
the fetus, that the right way to go about this is to make sure that women
have access to treatment and support they need."

In Canada, the case of a Winnipeg woman in 1996 drew national attention to
the problem of expectant mothers who are also substance abusers.

A judge committed the 22-year-old pregnant woman, who was addicted to
sniffing glue and solvents, into the care of the Winnipeg child and family
services agency until the baby was born.

Social workers had been concerned about damage her glue-sniffing was doing
to her fetus. At the time of the unprecedented order, the woman was five
months pregnant and already had three other children -- two of whom
suffered brain damage traced to her sniffing of glue, paint thinner and
nail-polish remover.

However the Manitoba Court of Appeal stayed the lower court order and the
Supreme Court of Canada later agreed the woman could not be forced into
treatment.

Justice Beverley McLachlin, writing for the majority, said rewriting the
law to allow pregnant women to be detained against their will and forced to
undergo treatment would force judges to confront "a web of thorny moral and
social issues" better dealt with by elected politicians.

The two dissenting judges concentrated on the fetus. "Someone must speak
for those who cannot speak for themselves," wrote Justice Jack Major,
supported by Justice John Sopinka.

"Society does not simply sit by and allow a mother to abuse her child after
birth. How then should serious abuse be allowed to occur before the child
is born?" Justice Major wrote.

In Canada there have been a few cases where damaging a fetus has resulted
in legal action. Dr. Somerville said there are cases where child protection
officials have seized babies based on abuse during pregnancy.

A person who harms a woman's fetus can also be charged with homicide under
the Criminal Code, but only if the baby is born and subsequently dies from
the wound.